Mobile Watch Files
Case#: 09-001
MW Volunteer Profile: Robert King
Mobile Watch volunteer Robert King considers himself the neighborhood grouch. It's a title he says he's willing to earn: "If you're going to be a neighborhood grouch, you have to pay your dues, and my dues are being in Mobile Watch and our Community Council, as well."
King joined Mobile Watch six years ago. He currently serves as vice chair of the Capitol Hill Community Council. Plus, he spent the last 17 years in the Air Force Reserves. Given his involvement in such groups, King has a better vantage point than most when it comes to knowing what's really going on in his neighborhood and what to do about it.
"If you care about your neighborhood," says King, "you have to be willing to put forth something. And, our community asks nothing of us, except maybe on April 15, when you pay your taxes. People sit in their houses and maybe they pick up the phone if they see something going on in the neighborhood and that's fine, we encourage them to do that. But if they want to be proactive, then you have to look outside your frontyard, and Mobile Watch is a good way to do it. You get to know your neighborhood better, you get to know your neighbors better."
King says the hours he spends patrolling his neighborhood for Mobile Watch has given him a better idea of who belongs where and when, especially at 2 in the morning. "Just the good guys and the bad guys are out at that hour. And bad guys outnumber the good guys considerably because most of the good guys are in bed. So, it kind of helps you sort who belongs and who doesn't," he explains.
On a recent patrol of the Capitol Hill area, King and his Mobile Watch partner that night, Don Duff, came across a young man walking in an industrial area at 15 minutes to midnight, which is curfew time for those under 18. At the same time, police were looking for four youths attempting to redecorate buildings and signs with their graffiti "art." King knew something wasn't quite right, so he and his partner called in their position while convincing the youth to stay put.
"He [the youth] was never threatening," King recalls, adding that "he was almost civil, almost polite, probably as much as any 16-year-old is capable of lately. So we were pleased that we got one. It's been my dream to get a graffiti boy, and it didn't happen, we didn't get him in the act, but we got him [in the end], and that was good."
Police had been looking farther to the east, while King and Duff were west of their position. That's the benefit, King says, of Mobile Watch: "it's eyes and ears for the police."
While some may be content to let the police handle taggers, King says he's never been one of those people who can accept a little "sand in their Visine," a metaphor he likes to use when describing quality of life crimes.
"Sand in my Visine bothers me. This [Mobile Watch] is something I can do, and I can get out and not sit and complain about it," he says, noting that a neighborhood that tolerates certain criminal acts sends the wrong message. "It's all intertwined. If there's a lot of graffiti," King says, "then that indicates to the criminals that they're welcome there.
One thing King particularly enjoys doing is finding and calling in impaired drivers. It's one of the specialties of Mobile Watch, which takes part in the Department's monthly DUI saturations. But for King, it's more than part of the drill - it is personal: "My father was killed by a drunk driver in 1963 and so I enjoy the DUI saturations. Maybe somebody else won't have to go through that if somebody who is impaired is dragged up off the street. I think they [drunk drivers] got it coming. We're not out there to harass law abiding citizens," says King, "but if we can make things more difficult for people who are out there creating mischief in the middle of the night, then that's OK, too."